


when we all fall asleep (where do we go?)

by aslanjades



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Dreams and Nightmares, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-01-07 02:04:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18400931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aslanjades/pseuds/aslanjades
Summary: Ash and Eiji have known each other for years—in their dreams, at least. Each night, they fall together in a realm of imagination until morning pulls them apart again, restricted by the same rule every time: in no way can they lead each other to find them upon returning to consciousness, leaving the possibility of them ever meeting to fate and fate alone.When that fate suddenly turns down a darker road and Ash dies before their paths can cross, he’s left with no choice but to make a deal with an unknown entity for the slightest chance to live a life with Eiji: in seven nights, he must find and seal the afterlife’s gates with the boy he longs to keep . . . or lose him forever.





	1. 0: sound asleep

EIJI WAS ALONE.

From where he stood in the rye field, small, bare feet amongst the green and gold, his vision was limited only to the intimidating vastness of the land surrounded by trees. Overhead, a plum-colored sky held a spray of gleaming stars and the moon cast an unnatural amount of light on the landscape, proving that this place wasn’t exactly home, where he could only spot a few stars in the sky and the illumination from the moon was generous but moderate.

If he was home, he would have felt unease being lost in such an unfamiliar area all by himself. But that feeling was subdued by the serenity that consumed him completely, making him feel . . . safe. Nothing bad ever happens in dreams, after all, especially not to the dreamer; if they did, they bordered on nightmares. And there really wasn’t anything nightmarish about this realm of consciousness.

That’s when he heard it—the sobs. 

Crescendoing sobs that seemed to come from somewhere in the field, cutting through the absolute silence that existed a mere moment ago. Too intrigued not to, Eiji followed the sound, pushing away the towering rye as he went and looking from side to side to pinpoint the location from which the cries came. 

For the six years he had been dreaming, he had been always alone. Granted, he also hadn’t been in such a landscape, but places were constantly shifting. The idea of having company was wholly unfamiliar. Eiji was hesitant, but the cautiousness was eclipsed by his childish curiosity—the curiosity that only heightened when he reached the center of the field and saw the source of the noise. 

There was a boy—younger than him by a year or two, definitely—sitting and sobbing into his balled fists. Cheeks flushed red and tear-stained, he murmured something that was incoherent not only because of the cries that cut his words into incomprehensible pieces, but also because he spoke another language.

Eiji squatted down, furrowing his brows and cocking his head at the wonder of another child in his dreams. While he moved closer, the other boy didn’t even acknowledge him, nor did his cries let up.

“Are you okay?” Eiji asked in his native language. His words yielded no response from the very person to whom they were directed. “What’s wrong?”

As if he wasn’t even hearing him—which was very possible—the child continued sputtering nonsensical words. One of those words he repeated over and over again, though the consonants were warped due to his inability to form them properly. 

Griff, he seemed to say. Whomever or whatever that was, the tone of the word was mournful. 

Eiji’s understanding of the scenario was low, but his empathetic nature overshadowed the confusion. His heart grew heavy watching the mystery boy cry, so he reluctantly placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder, feeling the warmth of his skin through the cotton of his stripped tee. Surprisingly, the cries weakened, shifting into sniffs and hiccups. The boy looked up. 

His eyes, though they were now red and puffy from crying, were the green of priceless jade gemstones and the vibrant leaves of trees blooming after a barren winter. Looking into them, Eiji felt a strange warmth overtake him from head to toe . . . A strange sense of familiarity despite being unsure just who his company was.

Slowly, Eiji leaned forward and wrapped his arms around the crying child, pulling his body towards his. The hug was imperfect—the blonde sobbed into the fabric of fleece pajama pants as he leaned his head against Eiji’s knees, an action that only made Eiji squeeze tighter, hoping that the attempt at consolation was translating—but it was something. Even when the boy cried and cried, Eiji held on.

He was alone.

But not anymore.


	2. 1: wide awake

EIJI COULD HEAR HIS ALARM blaring the same melodic piano music that always lured him from his dreams, but that didn’t mean he would listen. 

Pulling the wool comforter over his shoulder, he shifted his body into a more comfortable position. His eyes stayed shut even as the music crescendoed and became more and more insistent, as a cloud parted ways with the sun and its rays filtered through translucent curtains, and as the quiet of his dreams shifted into the various sounds of the world. 

When he finally accepted the fact that chasing after what was already gone would be a fruitless effort, he opened his eyes, sat up, and silenced the piano movement. After running his fingers through the hair that had been shamefully tousled while he slept, he fell back onto the mattress once again and put an arm over his eyes to block out the sunlight.

He’d napped for just over half an hour—not bad considering the fact that trying to sleep while his coworkers shuffled and shouted just downstairs was a near impossible task. Surprisingly, he felt somewhat well rested. His mind wasn’t too foggy, his eyelids weren’t involuntarily closing, and he didn’t feel that his body would give out completely if he stood. 

Spiritually, though, he was restless. Spiritually, he felt cheated by how quickly time shifted while he was in the dream realm waiting for his soulmate to arrive, because it simply wasn’t enough. Even when his soulmate _was_ there, the time they had together wasn’t sufficient.

Sensing a pattern, he suspected that no matter what, time would never be on his side.

Eiji removed his arm from over his eyes and let the sunlight illuminate his face. For a moment, the warmth transported him to another realm. For a moment, it was moonlight that washed over him as he stood a rye field with a boy whose soul was intertwined with his. But when he opened his eyes again, he was back in Upper Manhattan, still fully clothed, and sleeping in a bed that wasn’t his.

He sat up, glancing at the time again. _4:22_. He had just under ten minutes before his break was over and he had no choice but to return to work. If he really wanted to, he could lay down for another five minutes and search for his soulmate a little longer; maybe he was just resting a bit late today, or maybe he had been elsewhere in the field and wanted to be alone—

The sound of something crashing to the floor downstairs was enough to snuff out all his hope of getting even a second more of sleep. Bidding the bed that had become his temporary comfort space farewell, he stood, let out a sigh, and headed downstairs to investigate.

Upon reaching the foot of the stairs, Eiji opened the door to reveal the quiet photo lab that, outside, was awkwardly sandwiched between a post office and a convenience store, but on the inside, was rather cozy. The walls were adorned with prints of various scenes—many of them the shop owner’s own photographs taken in Japan—and the shelves against opposite walls were stocked with film of various gauges, most of which went untouched by customers. Pushed into the corner was an old television originally meant to display photos but quickly turned into another perk of working at the business. 

With his back to Eiji, a coworker hunched over his phone, elbows against the wooden service counter. He didn’t look up until Eiji shut the door, and even then, his reaction was only an analytical glance followed by a snicker before he returned to scrolling through the device in front of him.

“Nice of you to join us. You’re looking rather awful.”

“Thanks, Yut Lung.” Though the words were most likely a joke (it was hard to tell with Yut Lung, who was so blunt all the time), Eiji brushed his fingers through his hair to make himself look presentable. Whether it did actually much to help or not, Eiji was unsure. “What was that noise?”

Yut Lung turned around and leaned back against the counter, pulling his ponytail over his shoulder and taking the ends of it between his fingers. He spread them, then pulled them together again in a scissoring motion, definitely more interested in getting a hair appointment than conversing with Eiji. “Sing’s in the storage room. Don’t worry about it.”

“And why shouldn’t I worry about that?”

Sing had a good heart, but he had proven himself to be the clumsiest person Eiji had ever crossed paths with. So clumsy that he was banned from developing photographs because it couldn’t be guaranteed that he wouldn’t destroy them. The fear wasn’t unfounded, after all—he tried developing orders twice and both times were absolute failures somehow, prompting Eiji to kindly tell him that it would be better if he just worked in the back or as a clerk. Sing had no complaints.

Really, he was more of a liability to the company than an asset, but the owner sought to protect him for a reason unknown to Eiji.

Yut Lung looked up. “He’s scheduled for another three and a half hours. If you start worrying now, you’ll get a headache.”

As if on cue, another questionable noise arose from the storage room. A moment later, Sing shouted, “I’m fine!”

Eiji and Yut Lung’s eyes met. He wouldn’t worry. He had enough to worry about as it was. 

“Did anyone come in while I was on break?”

Yut Lung had already returned to fiddling with his hair, his interest in the conversation clearly lost again. “Oh, while you were sleeping?”

The gentle jab yielded no response from Eiji. He _had_ been sleeping during his break all week, and he didn’t blame Yut Lung for being curious about it. He usually rested well overnight, but his constant slumbering wasn’t because he wasn’t sleeping during the typical hours; it was his soulmate—Aslan—who, for whatever reason, didn’t sleep at night anymore. And when Eiji began to find him in the dream realm during midday, he always seemed agitated, pacing and turning away from Eiji. 

Of course, Eiji didn’t expect Yut Lung to ask about that. In fact, Yut Lung, who hadn’t ever so much as mentioned soulmates, was starting to make Eiji believe he didn’t even have one.

“No,” Yut Lung said, figuring Eiji wouldn’t find anything to say after a minute of staying quiet. “No one else came in. Unless you count the woman who walked in thinking that this was the post office, looked around, and immediately walked out as a customer.”

“Great.” Eiji didn’t expect everything at the shop to miraculously go better with the owner away, but he had hoped that would be the case. He preferred to not have to be the bearer of the bad news that the business was steadily declining and the trend didn’t change when he was temporarily placed in charge. 

“If Ibe asks, you can always just say everything is the same as usual. Sounds nicer than _no one wants to come to your business because it’s the twenty-first century and everyone uses digital cameras._ His wife just had a child, so I think it’s best to not give him anything else to worry about.”

Eiji would have been lying if he said that, in the moment, he didn’t contemplate taking Yut Lung’s advice. “Anything else?”

“Yeah. There’s some film that Sing fucked up in developing, so if you can, salvage it. If not, we can just apologize and tell the customer that they brought it to us with some irreparable damage—“

“We’re not lying to a customer.”

“My apologies, I forgot you’re so pure and holy. _will apologize and tell the customer—“_

“Yut Lung. No.”

The sternness in Eiji’s voice was apparently enough to get the point across, as Yut Lung lazily put his hands up and rolled his eyes. “Fine.”

“I’m staying in Ibe’s home. It’s only fair that I’m honest with him.” If Eiji wasn’t honest, the guilt would eat him alive. 

It was Ibe who had given him an offer for a stable job in the States and helped him find a place to live. Although that place turned out to be a studio apartment the size of a walk-in closet, it was something, a something that Eiji was grateful for. And when Ibe announced that he was going back to Japan for a few months to be with his wife while she gave birth to his first child, he so graciously offered—no— _demanded_ that Eiji stay in his apartment directly above the shop. He said it was repayment for all Eiji had done to assist him, though Eiji believed it was the other way around.

If Ibe asked, Eiji would simply tell him that they only got a few customers a week. It was nothing new, anyway, and it was the truth. The truth was the least he could offer in return for everything.

“I get it.” Yut Lung shrugged. “You don’t have to explain. What you do have to do is try to fix that film. We’re trying to make money, not refund the customers we do get.”

Eiji nodded, more to himself than to Yut Lung, then headed to the darkroom. Just as his hand touched the brass knob, the adjacent door that hid the storage closet behind it opened and Sing stepped out. Their eyes met, and they both softly smiled.

Eiji lifted his hand in greeting, the gesture hardly resembling a wave but having the same intent as one. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Sing echoed. Realizing that all eyes were on him, he awkwardly chucked and pointed into the storage closet behind him. “Everything’s fine.”

Yut Lung hummed in disbelief, the corner of his mouth tilting up into a grin. 

As expected, the reaction got a rise out of Sing. Cheeks flushing, he argued, “You can check yourself—“

Biting back a laugh, Yut Lung shook his head. “No, no. We’ll take your word for it.”

Despite Yut Lung having to slightly raise his chin to look Sing in the eye due to the latter’s recent growth spurt, he was always the one with the upper hand in any dispute between them. Eiji didn’t know if it was because of how quickly Sing got flustered or how much experience Yut Lung had in the field of being stubborn.

“Sing,” Eiji interjected, ending the brief standoff between his coworkers. “Be honest; how badly did you ruin the film?”

“What film?”

“The film I’m being forced to attempt to rescue . . .?”

Sing narrowed his eyes, then shrugged. “I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. You know I don’t touch film unless I absolutely have to.”

“Yut Lung said—”

All eyes trailed to Yut Lung, who stood with his arms crossed. Without any exchange of words, the truth became clear to everyone in the room.

Rather than denying it, Yut Lung’s devious grin spread. “Why would I take responsibility when I can blame Sing? It’s just sounds so much more believable.”

Eiji merely shook his head and walked into the darkroom while Sing went on the offensive and fumbled over words in an attempt to reprimand Yut Lung. When Eiji shut the door behind him, the sound became nothing more than muffled nonsense.

As he found and examined the film to prepare for the process, his mind wandered as it always did. Immersed in the same darkness as he was when he closed his eyes to dream, it was natural that he subconsciously sought the closest alternative: getting lost in a daydream.

As his limbs moved, going through the same motions Ibe explained to him when he first began to work at the shop, his mind worked at a different pace. Flew off the rails, actually, with thoughts blooming about how different things would be if his soulmate just walked through the door someday.

Most people didn’t find their soulmates within their lifetimes (how could they when the _don’t ask, can’t tell_ policy was so heavily enforced by some outside force?), but the difference between them and Eiji was that they didn’t try. Eiji looked and looked, halting at any sight of blonde hair in a crowd and analyzing the faces of everyone he passed by. 

Maybe he was gullible for thinking that it was possible that he could find his soulmate so easily when he didn’t even know if he was in New York and every online search returned obituaries—none of them for his Aslan, thankfully—but he hoped, and he would hope until his dying breath.

He wouldn’t be like his parents, two souls who had given up on finding their match and were eventually separated by the hand’s of death anyway. He wouldn’t settle for the next best thing.

He wouldn’t.

* * *

By the time Eiji had successfully gotten images from the seemingly destroyed film, finished the other few orders that had been waiting to be developed, and called the customers to relay pick-up-by dates, night had fallen outside. The TV had been cut on though its volume was low, and a newscaster relayed the latest events in the bustling city.

Sing leaned against a shelf, disinterestedly watching the headlines flash across the television screen. Yut Lung was in the same position Eiji found him in earlier—leaning on the counter with his nose in his phone.

Eiji shutting the door to the darkroom and moving behind the counter hardly disturbed the peace. No one even turned to look at him. With everyone’s shifts almost being over, they had lost interest in anything involving the workplace.

To make himself useful, Eiji sifted through finished prints, checking the pick-up dates and, for kicks, organizing them by surname. He would be lying if he said that he too wasn’t only focused on going home—his temporary one, at least. All he could think about was getting into bed and meeting Aslan in the dream realm; if he would even be there. 

There had been so many _if’s_ and _maybe’s_ recently that Eiji thought if he thought those hypothetical words again, he would lose his mind.

“Yut Lung,” Sing called, pulling Eiji from his thoughts, “turn up the TV.”

Without looking up, Yut Lung grabbed the remote by his side and pointed the device towards the small flat screen, hitting the button to raise the volume a few times.

“The police are looking at more than 30 casualties in a gang-related shooting primarily between two rivaling groups from the area at a warehouse that was supposedly used as a hideout in Downtown Manhattan . . .”

“Holy,” Sing breathed. Eiji simply tried to continue focus on organizing finished orders, doing his best to tune out the broadcast. He wasn’t one to watch the news. He could read about it, sure, but hearing the weight of the words in someone else’s voice and seeing the images flash across the TV screen made him feel faint. Even now, as inexplicable as it was, his pace of checking names and pick up times slowed and his stomach lurched.

“ . . . The event has residents wondering if police, who were said to have taken a whopping half hour to arrive at the scene, will finally act to control the rising rates of gang violence in the downtown Manhattan area . . . “

“Bullshit. They don’t care. They won’t care until every one of them is dead. Their solution is letting them kill each other one by one so they don’t have to deal with it.” Eiji heard Sing let out a tense breath before the sound of shuffling filled the air. “I’ve gotta make a call.”

Moments later, the bell above the door rang, followed by the door itself shutting with a soft _thud_.

“I . . . didn’t know he cared that much,” Yut Lung breathed, the words laced with curiosity.

“Me neither.”

A silence fell among the two, existing for only a moment before it was filled by the articulated speech of the news anchor. 

“ . . . appears to have been an ambush. Ash Lynx, a gang member who was thought to have succumbed to injuries received during another gang-related conflict more than a year ago, was one of many pronounced dead on the scene . . .”

Eyebrows drawn together, Eiji looked over his shoulder at the screen, his hands halting completely at the image displayed next to one of evidence markers next to bullets at the scene. 

The world seemed to be still around him as he stepped towards the counter in front of him and gripped the edge of it to stay upright. For an impossibly long moment, he wasn’t breathing, wasn’t hearing anything further from the newscaster because the sound of his heart palpitating was so damn loud. He couldn’t even tell if he was seeing properly. 

The eyes in that photo were the same that innocently looked up at him years upon years earlier. The eyes of the purest jade, the eyes belonging to—

A mugshot of Aslan was being broadcast on a major news network. _His_ Aslan. His soulmate.

And that same boy he had spent countless hours with in his dreams . . . was dead.

“I’ll be back,” Eiji told Yut Lung, the words coming out as more of a whisper than anything. He gently grabbed onto Yut Lung’s arm to ground himself before his mind drifted up and away towards dangerous territory, pulling his hand to his chest when he got a look containing a cross between concern and confusion.

Before Yut Lung could respond, a door was opened and shut and Eiji was heading upstairs, sneaker-clad feet pushing against the ground as he moved on autopilot. His mind, instead of thinking rationally, repeated the same phrase over and over again: _Let it not be true. Let it not be true. Let it not be true . . ._

After fumbling with the keys, Eiji opened the door to Ibe’s apartment only to kick it shut behind him. He grabbed his phone that had been sitting idle on his bed and opened the built-in browser, his rush ending as he paused to let his mind catch up to his body and stared at the home page. The previously unfamiliar name came back to him in an instant, but as he typed it into the search bar, his fingers moved across the screen at a fraction of that speed.

He hit search.

Immediately, news articles and images came up on the screen, the first photo being the same mugshot he had seen on the television. Eiji clicked one of the older articles and scrolled through, eyes skimming the words on the page and halting after one particular sentence. _The gang leader succumbed to the injuries received during a conflict in which he killed dozens of opposing members._

Eiji lowered his phone. He stared at the wall with parted lips, everything around him seemingly spinning. Who the hell was this? He had Aslan’s face, but the thought of his soulmate killing dozens of people—anybody, for that matter—not only made Eiji sick to his stomach, but made no sense at all. Nothing was making sense.

He needed an explanation. He needed some kind of answer to the question running rampant in his head: did the person he thought he knew and this antithesis bear any similarities or was he fooled into thinking he would find the perfect boy and they would live the perfect life for years? 

This couldn’t be it. Aslan couldn’t be gone. Not yet. Not without closure after the opening of Pandora’s box, the unleashing of unfathomable horrors. 

One moment, Eiji was thinking too hard and too fast. The next he was texting Yut Lung and telling him that he was taking the rest of the night off, locking the door, and shutting off the lights. Then he climbed into bed, trying to tune out the beating of his heart as he forced himself to sleep in the hopes that he wouldn’t be alone in the next realm.

He would find an answer.

At least, he hoped so.


	3. 2: sound asleep

THE MANIFESTATION OF the dream realm was a curious thing. It was inexplicable, the way the real world gave out to make way for the assembly of fragments of one that was calmer, warmer. Darkness shifted to a familiar landscape, to stars and a lilac sky, and a gentle breeze made the stalks of rye sway around Eiji and the leaves of trees encircling the field rustle, a sound that was actually . . . soothing, somehow.

It was inexplicable, but it was equally as magical.

However, that sense of tranquility faded when Eiji came to, remembering why he had gone to sleep so hurriedly. Somewhere along the way, his mind had calmed, but his heart was still rhythmically thumping. A chill ran up his spine at the thought of Aslan not being there, for if he wasn’t there now, it was the end. The end of the years long search to find him, of any hope Eiji had for a future together, and of the possibility of getting an explanation and finding common ground between the Aslan he knew and the Aslan—no, the Ash—the world knew.

It took more strength than Eiji expected to a step forward and clear his throat. He cupped his hands around his mouth, took in a breath, and called, “Aslan?”

The name echoed in the air, drifting up and spreading out before dissipating into silence. 

There was no response.

Heart sinking into his stomach, Eiji kept walking forward, the steps slow and cautious so he could still hear any indication of him not being alone, even the most hushed. Again, he shouted his soulmate’s name. “Aslan?”

He halted to hear even the slightest sound, looking around the field. But no matter how much he searched, he was alone. All he could hear was the trees, still rustling; the rye, still whispering; the air, still whistling—

“Eiji?”

The reply was quiet, soft enough that it could have easily been the sound of wind breezing past him that his mind warped to be what he wanted to hear. But at the same time, it was too familiar and made Eiji look around too frantically to be a product of his imagination.

“Aslan!”

He stared ahead, scanning the field for the statuesque form of the boy whose name stayed on his tongue. When his words were met with silence again, he shook his head to himself, perplexed. _Was_ he only imagining the sound? As much as he wanted Aslan to be there, the odds were against it; maybe he was just subconsciously trying to make himself believe in a falsity to dull the aching in his heart that would only grow . . .

“Eiji!”

Eiji whirled around and stopped in his tracks, letting out an awed breath at the sight of his soulmate standing mere yards in front of him. His eyes scanned over Aslan’s limbs, his torso, his face—he was intact. He looked okay.

Without thinking about it, Eiji’s legs started to carry him forward. Aslan, too, was running, his desperation becoming more and more conspicuous as he approached. He was tripping over his feet, almost, eyes shining brighter than the moon and stars above them. 

And surprisingly, when they crashed together, Aslan wrapped his arms around Eiji, burying his head into his shoulder. 

This wasn’t the cold Aslan. This wasn’t the Aslan who sat feet away from Eiji for entire nights, staring ahead with his lips seeming to be eternally shut. This was a version of him that Eiji hadn’t seen for weeks, maybe even _months_ , and he could hardly believe it.

Nevertheless, he found the strength to lift his limp arms and place one hand on Aslan’s back and another at the nape of his neck. The embrace hardly lasted, though, because a moment later Aslan was pulling away and cupping Eiji’s face, jade eyes filled with utter relief.

“I thought I lost you.”

Then he smiled a smile that was hardly noticeable but effortlessly warm, not flashed because he knew that it was what Eiji wanted to see, but because he _meant_ it. 

And for a moment, Eiji felt completely at ease.

“Come on,” Aslan said, pulling his hands away from Eiji’s face to grab one of his hands. He began walking, nearly dragging the latter along until his legs worked again. “We don’t have much time—”

“What?”

For once, Eiji wasn’t worried about how much time they had. There was so much more to focus on that it simply slipped down the list of importance and out of his mind, but Aslan seemed insistent.

“I know you’re confused, and I’ll explain later. Look, we have to leave the field. We have to go—”

“Aslan,” Eiji breathed, head spinning at the words Aslan spewed out and feet struggling to keep up with the alarming pace set by the blonde. Aslan didn’t falter, didn’t even look back. Like he wasn’t hearing Eiji at all.

“We have seven nights, Eiji, and if we don’t make it, if we’re late—”

“ _Ash_.”

Aslan stopped, unlacing their hands in an instant. Eiji stood up straight, cheeks flushing as his soulmate stood utterly still, his back to him. When he turned around, a hint of that coldness was back, so chilling that it made a shiver run down Eiji’s spine. 

“Don’t . . . Don’t I deserve an explanation? And not for whatever has you so frantic, but for the news saying you killed dozens of people in a single night, or . . . or for them saying you’re a gang leader and flashing your mugshot all over the city—”

Eiji let out a breath to combat his trembling voice, staring Aslan in the eyes as he continued, “I don’t want to believe you’re capable of any of that, but how do I know you’re not? Ash—”

“Aslan.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Call me Aslan.”

“ _Aslan_.” He clearly sensed something off in the way Eiji said his name, because his eyes snapped open and he nearly _flinched_ , as if Eiji had reached out to hit him. Noticing the reaction, Eiji took a step back to distance himself, then shook his head to himself before weakly asking, “who are you?”

“You know me. You’ve known me since we were kids.”

“It just doesn’t make any sense—“

“You know me better than any of those journalists do. You know me.” When Eiji shut his eyes and turned away, Aslan grabbed onto one of his hands with both of his this time, clutching it as though his life depended on it. “Eiji, please.”

“Okay,” Eiji whispered. Eventually, he was able to open his eyes and look into Aslan’s again, finding comfort and familiarity in them like he did when he first found the blonde crying alone in the field all those years ago. “Okay. I believe you.”

“Okay,” Aslan echoed. He dropped Eiji’s hand again, then blinked to himself a few times to find his way back. When he was all the way there again, his normal self replacing the desperate, pleading Aslan that took control for a few moments, he looked away from Eiji. “Can we go?”

“Where?”

Aslan turned around and began to walk further away from the center of the rye field. Just when Eiji was sure he wouldn’t be getting an explanation—he never did, anyway—Aslan spoke. “I made a deal.”

Following behind him, Eiji remained silent. He had so many questions, so many worries floating around his head. _A deal? With whom? What for?_

Patience. He had to be patient. The fact that he could even get an answer now was enough.

“You know that I died.” Aslan wasn’t asking, so Eiji didn’t feel the need to respond. “After, I was drifting in complete darkness. I wasn’t all the way gone yet—my mind was still thinking. And something . . . came to me. It asked if I wanted to stay. Not in the real world, but here. With you.”

“And you said yes?”

“No. I was too wary to, but they made me have visions . . . like I could feel how I would if I stayed here. I wanted to say yes. I wanted to say yes so badly, and that was enough.” He paused his speech for a split second, but his feet didn’t so much as falter. He kept marching on, and Eiji kept trailing behind. “Then they were telling me that I had to leave the field—that _we_ had to leave the field—and we had only seven days. That we had to take the paths to find the gate to the afterlife and shut it.”

Eiji bit down on his lip. “And if we don’t?”

“They’ll take me, even if I’m kicking and screaming.”

The answer made Eiji feel sick, a softened repetition of what he felt when he got the news of Aslan being dead. They would take him, he said, but neither of them knew who would or where Aslan would wind up going, so it was more than clear that they only had one choice.

They had to find and shut the gate. Together.

When they reached outskirts of the rye field, an area they hadn’t before ventured having found comfort in their safe haven towards the center, the first thing Eiji noticed was the cold. The wind blew harder, though the amount of force would have been unnoticeable if it wasn’t for how it made Aslan’s blonde fringe drift in the air a bit more wildly than before.

There was no guarantee that they were safe here, just outside of the fields, and no guarantee that the paths indicated by parts in the cluster of trees wouldn’t have even more unstable conditions. Still, neither of them even considered retreating, for surrendering meant giving Aslan up to whatever entity he had bargained with in the first place, and both of them were against that for their own reasons.

“Let’s see how many paths there are,” Aslan insisted. Eiji nodded, heading to the edge of the closest path to begin his count. Aslan began strolling in the opposite direction, hands clasped behind his back.

_One, two, three . . ._

Eiji quickened his pace to a slow jog, an uneasiness settling throughout his body. Seven nights. It seemed like a generous amount of time, but the seconds and minutes and hours shifted so quickly in this realm that there was no telling what that would truly equate to. 

As much as he hated it, being pulled back and forth by such a seemingly simple concept, in the end, it always came down to time—to how much or how little he had. His entire relationship with Aslan had been built on the time they had together, first limited, then greatly extended when Eiji moved to New York. For a split second, when he saw that Aslan was still there and alive someway, he thought time was finally done plotting against him. Now, he couldn’t be more wrong.

He jogged a bit faster, and the wind responded by pushing against him more forcefully. 

As the number of paths rose and Aslan neared, Eiji slowed his pace, heavily inhaling and exhaling in an attempt to catch his breath and clear his head of the haunting thoughts that had emerged. 

Hands now in the pockets of his white coat, when be drew close enough, Aslan uttered, “Forty.”

“Sixty,” Eiji replied, voice a bit quieter than he intended.

A hundred paths—a number bigger than either of them. The digestion of such a number, one that could be the death of Aslan and of whatever they had between them, lowered their spirits, but was cut short when Aslan took a step forward. “We don’t have time to waste.”

Eiji followed behind wordlessly.

* * *

Eiji couldn’t say he wasn’t used to silence. 

The truth? He was more than used to Aslan being quiet beside him. With the magic that danced in the air when they collided again gone, the air just felt . . . eerie. The sound of leaves and dirt crunching beneath their feet hardly did anything to dissolve the unnerving quiet, because Eiji still felt heavy. Nervous.

Aslan so commonly brought him an inexplicable feeling of elation that this new—was it fear?—was entirely mysterious. So mysterious, so consuming, that Eiji walked a bit slower to fall behind Aslan so there could at least be some distance between them and he could adjust to the difference in atmosphere.

Given that he had enough to stress over as it was, it was nice that the path they were traversing was stable thus far. The air hadn’t suffocated them, the ground hadn’t given out to reveal the pits of hell, and the trees hadn’t all fallen at once, killing them where they stood. Whatever force they were betting with was playing fair . . . 

His thoughts ceased when he noticed he was falling. He didn’t know how, but one moment, he was standing upright and the next, the ground was rapidly approaching and all he could do was throw his hands out to soften the blow of the fall—

At least until he was being tugged back up by one of his hand and pulled into Aslan’s chest. 

Without thinking, he pushed himself away, then flushed red after realizing what he had done and even redder when he saw the tree roots he tripped over. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t know which exact thing he was sorry for, but the apology on its own stood well enough. Aslan let go and kept walking as if nothing happened at all, mumbling, “It’s fine.”

“I just—“ Eiji paused, biting down on his lip. Aslan stopped, but he didn’t turn around. He expected Eiji to continue, but the words Eiji wanted to say didn’t seem to be finding their way out of their cage within his throat. “I . . . didn’t expect things to turn out like this.”

And Aslan _chuckled_ , but Eiji caught the humorlessness and rigidity in the sound. When the laugh faded out, Aslan looked over his shoulder, blonde hair forming a curtain over the eyes that focused on the dirt beneath their feet. “Honestly? Neither did I.”

Eiji pursed his lips upon realizing that, unlike him, Aslan was fighting for his life. Actually, he already lost the one that, for many, counted most, and now he was trying to secure his place in the only realm in which his existence was still somewhat solidified. Eiji didn’t expect things to turn out as they had, no, but Aslan didn’t expect to be dead.

Eiji opened his mouth again but shut it moments later, figuring if it was better if he didn’t speak at all. And, sensing that Eiji had no response, Aslan walked a few steps ahead. Then he slowed before stopping altogether, back still turned to Eiji the way it had been so many times that night. “You want to ask me something. You’ve been wanting to ask me something this whole time.”

Hesitant, Eiji let out a short, tense breath. He did want to ask something. He wanted to ask a million things, had always wanted to, but questions didn’t come to him the same way they did when he was awake while he was there with Aslan. Despite having so much to ask, there was so little he felt he could voice without increasing the tension in the air. So he waited until the right words found him, until any question out of the innumerable arose.

“How did you die? I mean—I know you were . . . “ The word Eiji wanted to say was simple, but it still contained a certain heaviness. They both knew what happened, but speaking it was much more difficult than merely thinking about it. “shot, but there’s more to it, isn’t there?”

Aslan hummed, seemingly weighing the question. “What’s the news saying?”

“That you and your gang were ambushed at your hideout. Is that true?”

“I don’t know.” Aslan pushed his hair back, then angled himself so he was still somewhat facing away from Eiji, but also not. He was opening himself to a certain extent, but not fully. 

Eiji had no complaints. He would take what he could get. 

“I didn’t know anyone was coming. No . . . I knew someone would be coming eventually, but I didn’t know that it would be then. By definition, I was ambushed. But there’s a dozen rooms to get through and a dozen faces to see before me, so someone helped them orchestrate it.”

“Do you have any ideas?”

Aslan shrugged. “Why does it matter?”

“Because . . . ” _Because justice matters. Because I don’t want to have lost you—the physical you—for nothing._ But Eiji spoke none of his thoughts, instead answering the question with that single lingering word.

“Yes, I have ideas, but they don’t matter. There’s no rewind button. I’ve never expected the law to give half of a shit about me, anyway.”

All Eiji could do was nod, for there was no way he could change his mind. Though he wondered why Aslan lacked faith in the law, he pushed the thought away. He had asked enough tonight. The key to dissolving the tension in the air was taking small steps.

“Can I ask you something now?” Aslan turned to him and the wind blew threw his hair and coat, creating an ethereal sight. It certainly was something out of a dream.

A soft, awestruck breath tumbled from Eiji’s lips. “Of course.”

“Where were you? No—where are you?”

“Upper Manhattan.”

When he saw the news, it hadn’t even crossed his mind that he and Aslan were so close. Not only were they in the same state, but they were in the same city, the same borough, even. Them properly meeting one day wasn’t implausible. 

If things had gone to plan.

“You’re a good person, Eiji.” Eiji felt heat rush to his cheeks at the small compliment; it meant something coming from Aslan. At the end of the day—or night—they were soulmates. Eiji wanted to be a good person in Aslan’s eyes. He wanted to be the best person. The absolute loveliest. “Maybe things were safer this way.”

Without another word, Aslan kept on walking. 

But Eiji didn’t move. Safer? He was never looking for safe. He wanted the good and the bad, the thick and the thin. He wanted Aslan whichever way he would come.

Eiji wanted _him_. Not the simplified, cleaned-up version. He always said he would take whatever he was presented with, and here he was. He had to ask himself now; would he take it or leave it?

He looked down the path at Aslan. Wanting Aslan meant wanting Ash Lynx, and Eiji decided he could live with that. At least, he thought he could. He would get there.

They just had to make it through the week first.


End file.
